Chicago to Kingston

A president arrived from Chicago with symbolism and warm words; a prime minister was re-elected in London who had designed the hostile environment; and Jamaica quietly changed its cannabis law in ways that the diaspora had been advocating for years

Briefing

• Barack Obama visits Jamaica on 9 April 2015; first sitting US president to do so.
• Jamaica decriminalises possession of small amounts of cannabis in April 2015.
• UK general election on 7 May returns a Conservative majority under David Cameron.
• Caribbean diaspora vote analysed; Labour loses ground in key diaspora seats.
• CARICOM reparations commission continues to build legal and moral case.

When Barack Obama arrived at Norman Manley International Airport on 9 April 2015, he became the first sitting President of the United States to visit Jamaica. The visit lasted less than twenty-four hours. It included a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, a press conference, and a brief engagement with Jamaican civil society. It produced few concrete policy announcements. But its symbolic weight was considerable, and the Jamaican and Caribbean diaspora in Chicago — which has one of the larger Jamaican communities in the American Midwest, concentrated in the south and west sides — followed it with an attention that reflected both pride and a particular kind of diaspora sentimentality: the sight of a Black American president, himself the son of an African immigrant, standing on Jamaican soil.

Obama’s Jamaica visit was part of a broader Caribbean engagement that also included a stop in Panama for the Summit of the Americas. He spoke about diaspora connections, about the contributions of Caribbean communities to American life, and about the need for economic development in the region. He did not offer reparations, or a formal apology for slavery, or a commitment to the policy changes that Caribbean governments had been requesting through CARICOM. But his presence was noted, and noted positively, across the diaspora — partly because it acknowledged Jamaica’s importance, and partly because his own biography made the visit feel like something more than a diplomatic courtesy call.

Cannabis Decriminalisation: A Long-Awaited Change

In April 2015, the same month as Obama’s visit, Jamaica enacted a significant change to its drug laws. The Dangerous Drugs Act was amended to decriminalise the possession of up to two ounces of cannabis for personal use. Rastafarians were given explicit recognition of their right to use cannabis for religious purposes. Medical cannabis was permitted under regulatory oversight. And a Cannabis Licensing Authority was established to develop a legal medical and scientific cannabis industry.

The decriminalisation was welcomed by diaspora organisations in Britain and North America that had been advocating for the change for years, partly on civil liberties grounds, partly on public health grounds, and partly on the grounds of racial justice: the criminalisation of cannabis in Jamaica had, like its counterpart in Britain and the United States, fallen disproportionately on young Black men, and had generated the kind of criminal records that foreclosed employment and housing opportunities. The change did not resolve the broader racial inequity in drug law enforcement — that was a systemic problem that extended well beyond any single legislative amendment — but it was a genuine step, and the Caribbean diaspora’s advocacy communities took note of it as such.

The UK Election: A Conservative Majority

On 7 May 2015, the United Kingdom held a general election. The opinion polls had predicted a hung parliament, with the Conservatives and Labour roughly tied. The result, when it came, was a surprise: the Conservatives won an outright majority of twelve seats, making David Cameron the first Conservative leader to win a majority since John Major in 1992. Labour, under Ed Miliband, performed worse than polls had suggested. Miliband resigned the following morning.

For the Caribbean community in Britain, the result was a setback. Not all Caribbean-heritage British people vote Labour — the community’s political preferences are diverse and cannot be reduced to a single affiliation — but the Conservative government had presided over a period of austerity that had fallen heavily on the public services, social housing and community organisations that were central to Caribbean community life. The hostile environment was operational under this government and would continue to be refined under the government just re-elected. The community’s relationship with the political system that had produced this outcome was one of engagement without illusion: Caribbean-heritage British voters participated, and they did so knowing that neither major party had consistently prioritised their concerns.

CARICOM Reparations: Building the Case

The CARICOM Reparations Commission, established in 2013 and operating through a ten-point programme that had been formally adopted by Caribbean heads of government, continued in the first half of 2015 to build the legal, historical and moral case for reparations from former colonial powers. The commission’s work was supported by academics at the University of the West Indies and by diaspora advocacy organisations across Britain and North America. Its ten-point programme, which included a formal apology, debt cancellation, technology transfers, support for a public health initiative addressing the conditions — including diabetes and hypertension — that had their roots in the conditions of enslavement, and a range of other measures, was gaining international attention.

The British government’s position — that reparations were not on the table, that the events of slavery were historical, that Britain had already made its contribution through the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and of slavery in 1833 — was unchanged. But the terms of the debate were shifting. The CARICOM reparations case was becoming more systematically documented, more legally precise, and more visible in international forums. The Jamaican diaspora in Chicago and across the Americas was part of that growing visibility: diaspora organisations were hosting educational events, funding research, and adding their voices to a conversation that was slowly, in the first half of 2015, beginning to be taken seriously by institutions that had previously dismissed it.